Open and Distance Education

            The introduction of the Internet has revolutionized open and distance education, as we know it now.  These free (mostly) online learning environments provide a variety of educational opportunities that are student centered, defies geographical challenges and time constrains.  According to the New York Times, though many institutions provide MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) the three leading providers who have been nicknamed as “The Big Three” are Coursera, Udacity and edX (New York Times, 2012).

Coursera (www.coursera.org)

            Coursera is the brainchild of Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng, both computer science professors form Stanford University.  Coursera is one of the leading providers of MOOC.  Coursera hosts on its platform, many courses form many well-known and accredited universities.  Video and web-based testing is used for content delivery.  Coursera is however a for profit organization that lets you start a course free, but after 3 weeks asks you to decide if you wan to continue in their Signature Track program that provides proof of course completion.  Participants may have to pay about $30-$100, depending on the course.  Those who sign up to continue will also have to submit a webcam photograph and a “keystroke” typing sample that determines your unique identity from the way you type. 

            Coursera has 33 university partners and offers 197 courses in 18 subjects for learners to choose form.  Online forums and study groups are available and students have meet-ups in 1,400 cities!   Most of the courses have start and end dates (New York Times, 2012).

edX (www.edX.org)

            “EdX was created for students and institutions that seek to transform themselves through cutting-edge technologies, innovative pedagogy, and rigorous courses” is the way edX introduces itself on its website (www.edX.org).  President of edX, Anant Agarwal says that their “mission is to offer the best courses from the best professors from the best universities – and quality, of course, is a key part of what we’re doing,” (Heussner, 2012).

            edX is a non profit organization that is run out of MIT, in Cambridge Massachusetts, but is governed by MIT and Harvard , and has affiliations with University of California at Berkley and University of Texas System.  edX also boasts partners outside the U.S. like, Australian National University (ANU), Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, McGill University, University of Toronto in Canada and Rice University in Texas.  While its goal is to educate 1 billion people in the next 10 years, it already has 675,000 people enrolled in its 25 courses platform, according to edX president, Anant Agarwal ( Heussner, 2013).

            While open education and distance education have seen tremendous changes in the past decades, what remains to be seen is if MOOCs are going to deliver the “ivy league quality” education to all who want to pursue it as they so boast.  The question that remains to be answered is, will these credentials form these open course platforms receive the same weightage as the courses obtained form traditional universities? 

References:

Heussner, K.M., (2013). Online education provider edX goes global, doubles number           of school partners Retrieved from: http://gigaom.com/2013/02/20/online-     education-provider-edx-goes-global-doubles-number-of-school-partners/

The New York Times, (2012). Retrieved from:             http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/education/edlife/the-big-three-mooc-         providers.html?ref=edlife